Posted on 09/02/2005 3:25:22 AM PDT by jimbo123
A great city has descended into chaos. In much of New Orleans yesterday, food and water remained in short supply. Medical help was nowhere to be found. And answers were impossible to come by.
Then hope ran out and it was the biggest loss of all.
At the city's convention center, a frustrated and angry mob rioted, furious that they had been dumped at a place where there was no food, no water and no one in charge.
At the Superdome, fights broke out in the huge crowd that assembled on an upper parking deck. The crowd jostled for position and hoped eventually to get on a bus to somewhere - anywhere.
Children cried.
Women fainted.
A man who asked for a cigarette got beaten with a pipe.
"People are hysterical. I'm scared. I'm upset," said Gloria Charles, 53, a school custodian.
Charles had walked to the Superdome in waist-high water with her five daughters, six grandkids, six nieces and nephews. They took turns keeping her mother, a 72-year-old amputee, afloat on an air mattress.
Her mother was taken away a day earlier for medical treatment.
"Now we're going to Houston" to the Astrodome, said Charles. "Where will she be?"
As if things weren't bad enough, a rumor soon shot through the crowd that another hurricane was brewing in the Atlantic. It even had a name: Hurricane Leo.
The anxious lines of people pushed against a National Guard barricade, sweaty and screaming and wishing it was all a bad dream.
But compared to the convention center, the Superdome was at least controlled chaos.
Daily News photographer Mike Appleton and I heard there was a riot under way at the convention center and headed over there.
As we walked past the Windsor Court hotel, we were stopped by a female state trooper. "Y'all came over here without guns? Don't go there. Don't go there unless you have a machine gun around your neck. We pulled our troops out because the civilians have taken over. We don't have the manpower to deal with them," she said.
But Mike and I decided to press on. This is a story the world needs to hear.
We passed a family next - three women and two men - frying chicken on a street corner. One of the men, wearing a 9-inch knife on his belt, wished us luck.
"Y'all better be strapped," he said as we walked by - strapped being slang for armed. The scene at the convention center was wild; the fury palpable. The people looked far more desperate and far more desolate than those at the Superdome.
"There's nobody of authority here," said A.G. Norton, 48. "They left us here under the impression that they weren't going to put us in the Dome because of the conditions there. But what about the conditions here?"
There was no food or water and not a cop or a soldier to be seen. And overnight, I was told, 10 people had died.
I was skeptical of the claim and a man took me to a massive refrigerator in the center's kitchen.
Eight bodies were inside, though there was no power to keep the refrigerator on. I found the other two corpses around the back, on a loading dock.
The body of an elderly woman sat in a wheelchair covered with a red-and-blue checkered cloth. Her feet stuck out and had blood on them. Next to her was a woman wrapped in a white sheet.
A little while later, we heard the thump-thump-thump of a helicopter and a Black Hawk dropped from the gray sky into the parking lot. The mob rushed the copter, swarming it before it even had a chance to land.
The soldiers inside opened the doors and pushed out cases of water and boxes of MREs - meals ready to eat. People pushed. People yelled. The old folks and kids grabbed what they could. The young men made out best, though some were willing to share their bounty. Others just kept what they had claimed and shouldered their way through the crowd.
Claudia Sims, 54, watched from the side, her six grandkids all around her. They hadn't eaten in 24 hours.
"I can't compete with these people," she said.
One of her little granddaughters waded into the throng and came back with a smile on her face.
"Grandma, I got food!"
In her tiny hand was her bounty - a single MRE.
Three minutes after landing, the copter lifted off and rose into the air.
I have seen such scenes before, but always on television and always from faraway places. In Third World nations, but not here.
As I watched the copter go, I thought to myself:
Can this really be happening in America?
Expect to hear about the rape rooms inside the convention center very soon...
Of course, the VERY local officials who failed to have any 1st response plan in place are now screaming to the Dinosaur Media "this is a NATIONAL disgrace". Oh really despite the fact that your OWN NHIS plan was suppose to be planning for this event as far back as 2001? No it is a disgrace to the city of NO and the State of Louisiana. YOU failed in your duty and now better men are being pilloried, again, for having to clean up the Hysteric Left's mess again.
America was the land of "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps."
Not seen that in a long time.........
NO has become Little Somalia!
Wow! What a very revealing difference!
With a crime rate 10 times the national average, New Orleans was about the closest thing we had to a third world city in this country.
That place is indeed an embarassment and a shame.
Imagine this same situation -- only with radiation added. Had a you-know-what hit the city instead of a hurricane, the damage and chaos would be just the same as it is tonight, only the fallout outside would be in the 400-500 rem/hour range by now.
That's what a terrorist attack with a "special weapon" would be like.
And, just as it would be in that case, the solution to the current situation in NOLA is simply to withdraw all forces to safe havens and let nature take its course.
Social chaos: it's what happens when the government doesn't shoot looters on sight.
NEVER rebuild this place. It is a blight...a hellhole created by the welfare state. The government raised three generations of dependent voters and now they are helpless when government proves once again that, no matter how many billions we have poured into it, it doesn't work.
Do you remember the massive flood in Houston several years ago? That city required little outside help because officials who were in charge did not sit on their butts and wait for Washington DC to help. NEVER expect help from Washington. They can only manage to cash your checks to the IRS.
America was the land of "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps."
Rev. Al Sharpton once said how could you pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don't have any bootstraps?
Very sad rhetoric.
New Orleans is the legacy of 40+ years of liberal "do gooders". My guess would be LA, DC, Phil, Atl would all have the same outcome had this disaster hit any one of those cities.
It's like inbreeding...the monster has been created and ain't goin' away.
I've always been of the opinion that "survivalists" were the goofs...not anymore...time to go stock up on the latest in weaponry.
Those situations are completely without comparison, NY city itself wasn't turned into a lake.
It's time to abandon N.O.
I will not spend one cent to rebuild that wretched hive of scum and villainy!
Remember also that these are not the average citizens of the city. These people are the poor and homeless and the others that had no means of evacuating the city before the storm came. Of course, this counts for nearly 30% of the city's entire population. Over 50% of New Orleans citizens did not own cars, opting instead to rely upon the city's public transportation systems. Now, tired and fearful for their lives and having gone days without food or water, people are beginning to act desperate. Another problem showing itself is in the surrounding cities where these people have evacuated to. Lafayette, Alexandria, and even Houston residents are seeing a surge in robberies, carjackings, break-ins, muggings, and crime in general. Gun stores are being broken into. Citizens of Louisiana are strapping on their handguns to go to work in the morning. I never once felt welcome in the city of New Orleans, so I can't imagine what these people expect, especially when they can't learn to conduct themselves in a civilized and orderly manner. Most of the ones I've talked to here in my hometown of Lafayette, louisiana (now housing 20,000 of these refugees) don't plan on going back, especially after seeing how the other citizens of the city are conducting themselves. I don't plan on ever even visiting again, If they ever get these animals out of my town.
"Daily News photographer Mike Appleton and I heard there was a riot under way at the convention center and headed over there."
Oh boy, a riot! Let's go there and get some pictures. The press sucks.
That is easy for the Rev Al to say, He was hoisted by his own petard.
I agree with you on going into survivalist mode. I think many Americans will now realize that chaos and mayhem can happen in their neighborhood. My heart goes out to the seniors who can't get out. I think shooting a looter or rapist will be needed before it turns. I'm tiring of hearing the media look to Washington too- there were way too many people who chose to stay and no one is going to admit they were simply too arrogant or stupid. I keep hearing they had no transportation but there are many cars shown on TV in those same areas.
Just how great was this city before this tragedy?
Not to be insensitive, but as far as I have known, this city was a cauldron of corruption, decadence, laziness, and dependency. How great was this city?
Democrats have operated this city for a very long time. A fine creation.
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